The opening of King Roger, an evocation of religious ritual in Byzantine Palermo, is an operatic one-off. And if no other composer has ever conceived quite such an atmospheric curtain-raiser, no other recording of Szymanowski’s 1926 masterpiece has ever conveyed it as thrillingly as this new release from the Polish National Opera on that country’s excellent CD Accord label. Seven years ago Simon Rattle’s fine recording set a new standard over some earlier and rougher Polish versions, but this one surpasses them all. The sound is more vivid, allowing these completely idiomatic performers maximum impact. Where Rattle was characteristically high-gloss, Jacek Kaspszyk uses the experience of live performance to dig deeper into this ambiguous work, and the same can be said for the respective castings of the title role, with the polished Thomas Hampson versus the more questing Wojciech Drabowicz. Rattle’s version comes enticingly coupled with a marvellous performance of Szymanowki’s Fourth Symphony, virtually a piano concerto and featuring Leif Ove Andsnes as the soloist, but this new issue fits economically on a single disc.

This is indeed a compact work, and under Kaspszyk it makes a mesmerizing impression. He conducts the highly perfumed score with feeling for its ebb and flow, and the orchestra is by turns rich and sinewy; the little escaping solos are rapturous. The chorus, including the boys who appear in the first scene, sing ardently. This story of conflict between Christianity and pagan culture is conveyed with hot-house intensity in music where East meets West, but Kaspszyk ensures that the composer’s unique brand of late-Romanticism never cloys.

Drabowicz sings Roger with darksome magnificence, and is compelling in his portrayal of this inscrutable dark horse who is forced to do battle with himself. His queen, Roxana, is sung in glowing, easy tone by Olga Pasiecznik, who really captures this figure’s agitation; she is ethereal in the off-stage coloratura of Act 2. Piotr Beczala is lyrically insinuating as the Shepherd, who unsettles everyone when he is revealed as the personification of Dionysus. With such an artist as Stefania Toczyska cast as the Deaconess, this is a recording of authentic depth.